The lack of genuine quality candidates and reaction from supporters to a pretty uninspiring potential appointment speaks volumes for the damage done by our attitude towards managers since the takeover

Snatching a disaster from the jaws of a glorious success
Oh for an interview with Jim Magilton today. I’d walk over hot coals to do it. I can think of a million things I would like to ask him, and in truth not many of them would even be about what happened in the Vicarage Road dressing room last Monday evening.

Whether Magilton did or did not head butt Akos Buzsaky is, for me, largely irrelevant. I mean we’re all interested and have poured over the gory details of press reports that suggest Magilton even dared to square up to Patrick Agyemang in the post match dust up that followed our poor 3-1 defeat there in the same way we all slow down when we see an accident on the motorway. However essentially the thing that really fascinates me about it all is how a manager who was hailed as a genius by QPR fans and had his team playing some of the best football we’ve ever seen at Loftus Road a month ago crashed and burned so quickly and so spectacularly.

He lost that dressing room. Don’t give me all that about not being sure or able to tell - look at the evidence staring us all in the face. Look at how we played against a mediocre Watford team and compare it to our performance against a good West Brom side a week later. Middlesbrough could not win a one ticket raffle at the moment and beat us 5-1 at home. Why? How? What on earth went on between Magilton and those players in the international break between Sheff Wed and Doncaster away for such a colossal break down in relations to occur? Is he a nutter? Are our players over sensitive? It’s the not knowing that’s doing my head in. I’d love to speak to him.

The first question I’d ask him is, if everybody was fit at QPR what would be your starting 11? For me that’s the crux of the whole problem. I don’t think he knew what his best starting eleven was from minute one here. I think he knew players he definitely wanted including, such as Fitz Hall and Mikele Leigertwood, but we tried so many systems and starting elevens it is impossible to conclude anything other than him being fairly clueless as to how he was going to fit it all together. When he stumbled across a system that worked in October it didn’t include the players he felt it should so he changed it, despite it being a fabulous team that was winning games, and that’s where it all started going wrong. The loss of Mahon and Rowlands through injury were certainly key blows, but Magilton created further problems for himself by not leaving well alone when he had a winning side.

After messing remorselessly with his team he then lost his temper with them when it stopped performing. Arsene Wenger’s rant at his players on Sunday was said to be his first in ten years at the club, and while Wenger is obviously a special case and there is a place for semi-regular ranting and raving – the Peter Reid technique of lashing your players on a daily basis should be put out to pasture with its chief protagonists. Very quickly it seems his players just stopped listening to him, players that could have rebuilt his reputation and carried this team to the Premiership quite comfortably had he rejoiced in his good fortune at finding a system that worked, and stuck with it.

I fear Magilton, a massive gamble for any club to take on ever again after this, and Rangers will forever look back on this as a glorious opportunity missed.

Same shit different day
Well we wondered if we could have found a manager with a worse CV than Jim Magilton’s to appoint in the summer and it seems we can. Magilton failed at Ipswich, Paul Hart has failed in lots of places - from Portsmouth in the Premiership to Rushden and Diamonds in the Conference. Sacked by them, and Barnsley and Nottingham Forest, for poor results, poor performances, a goals scored record that was measured in months rather than matches, and various disagreements with chairmen. Miserable both in public persona and style of play Hart is tipped by the Ealing Gazette and others to be the new manager of QPR now the inevitable departure of Magilton and Gorman has been confirmed and looking back at his history of relations with seniors and results would you honestly back him to make it through to the Newcastle match?

The reaction to Hart’s apparent impending appointment has been pretty quiet on the message boards. Had his name been put forward 12 months ago when we appointed Sousa there would have been anger and threats of season ticket returns. For me the reaction of the fan base shows two things.

Firstly supporters know that after allowing De Canio to leave while never publicly explaining the reasons properly, sacking Dowie and Sousa for no good reason at all, and now losing Magilton as well, admittedly through no fault of the board, we are about as attractive as a rusty bear trap to any potential manager.

On the face of it, to an outsider looking in, even when De Canio fulfilled his brief to the absolute letter he was removed at the end of the season and therefore who is to say that a manager who got us promoted from this league wouldn’t then be replaced by a big name after promotion? Rumours about the real reasons for De Canio’s departure persist, and both club and the man himself have said he wasn’t sacked, but with the club keeping that a secret it just adds to the appearance of the place being deeply ensconced in total farce. As the manager total has racked up the policy of sticking out one line statements with ‘no further comment’ after them will come back to haunt Briatore and co – had they produced good and amicable reasons for De Canio leaving then the press wouldn’t be able to beat us over the head with his departure at least.

To potential candidates this job has worse long term prospects than the position of kamikaze pilot so don’t expect the very best managerial talent on offer to come running, begging for a chance to be our next victim. At least when a black widow spider treats its men like shit and slays them they get a shag first.

Secondly supporters, quite rightly, assume that even if it is Hart and it goes terribly wrong there’ll be another manager along in a minute anyway. Magilton and Dowie both left despite achieving good results and Hart’s record suggests he’s unlikely to match even their achievements here, Magilton, Sousa and apparently De Canio left for non-footballing reasons. The lifespan of a QPR manager seems to be six months regardless of how well they do, and it’s said that Hart will only get a six month contract anyway. So don’t worry, we’ll be looking for a seventh manager of the Briatore reign in the summer anyway in all likelihood.

As you can probably tell the idea of Paul Hart being in charge doesn’t exactly thrill me, but having gone overboard on Jim Magilton in the summer only to then be proved totally wrong and won over, only to then be let down terribly I’ll keep my powder dry for now. I think it would be a nothing appointment, smacking of desperation, lacking ambition and doomed to failure but we’ll see.

One thing Magilton did show was that even a flawed manager with virtually no experience at all can get this QPR team playing because the squad is so full of talent. For a manager looking to rebuild a reputation or somebody who is perceived as being too poor to get a job anywhere else this might not be such a bad place to end up after all, particularly on a six month deal, because, I’d back a partially trained chimp to get a squad including Taarabt, Simpson, Watson, Routledge, Buzsaky, Gorkss, Stewart, Connolly and Cerny into the play offs in this league. If Paul Hart, or whoever it is coming in here, can pick a settled team and refrain from trying to smack any of the players there’s still a very real chance of success here.

The money we pay and the length of contracts we give out mean we can still attract very good players to our club. Sadly the way we have treated managers over the past two years means we cannot do the same with gaffers. We are once again on the cusp of appointing another League One manager to manage a team that wants to go into the Premiership. We really needed to keep Magilton for a year or two and show that we can be patient with managers and allow them to build a team here just to rebuild our own image with good candidates for our job. Sadly having been reduced to taking a chance on a manager with no track record in the summer he then let us down badly firstly by messing with a winning team and secondly by losing his rag with them and apparently crossing the line in the dressing room afterwards.

What should be happening now, in my opinion, is Steve Coppell and Alan Curbishley should be being asked to name their price. Coppell wants to take a break from football, Curbishley still wrangling with West Ham say reports today – my arse, if a good club made them a decent offer and they’ll take it. The problem is we are not a good offer, however much money we put on the table, because of the farce of the last two years.

Assuming Coppell and Curbs would laugh us out of town my personal choice would be Darren Ferguson. Young, promising, up and coming manager with excellent connections in the game and two promotions under his belt in his very first job. He also has an excellent record of picking up promising talent from the non-league and may well start by bringing Aaron McLean with him from Peterborough after his transfer listing earlier today. I really think Ferguson would go very well here, and he already has experience of working with a demonstrative, hands on chairman at London Road. He’s currently out of work as well making things much easier and cheaper than it would have been to poach him from the Posh, or Billy Davies from Forest as has been suggested.

It seems I’m to be disappointed again, the only hope is that Hart can bring stability and success to the team in the short and medium term in the hope that we can then attract somebody better in the long run. It’s a farcical situation to be in, entirely of our own making.

Clouds with silver linings
If it is to be Hart, and despite the tone of this article and many others like it today that is not yet certain, then one positive for me would be the return of Mick Harford as his assistant as seems to be the case. We know all about Mick the player of course, a bloody hard bastard who battered his way through many QPR centre halves in the 1980s and early 1990s.

We know a bit about him as a coach as well after nicking him from Colchester in 2006 and pairing him with John Gregory. When he was charged with taking over from Gregory on a caretaker basis he made good signings, and had a very limited group of players playing excellent football. A win at Charlton live on Sky sticks in the mind as a fully committed, skilful and entertaining display. Under normal circumstances Harford probably would have been given our job permanently but fresh from a takeover by Flavio Briatore that was never going to be likely – it says much of the farce Briatore has worked us into when it comes to managers that we’re now going to be very glad to have him back.

Paul Hart’s record as a manager inspires me about as much as the thought of getting up for work at 6am tomorrow to do 60 miles to work in the snow and ice. But the addition of Harford to the deal does brighten my mood very slightly. He has shown himself to be a very good coach and assistant with us and Colchester, was unlucky not to be given the job with us and Forest after good caretaker spells, and was praised by many for the work he did at Luton under difficult circumstances. He’s a coach I have a lot of time for and is just about the only good news I can take from another bleak day at Loftus Road.

Photo: Action Images

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